The present invention relates to an electrical plug and socket connector having a socket part and a plug part, the plug part including a housing, in which an actuating lever is mounted so that it can pivot about a pivot point and it includes teeth at its free end which work together with an additional gearing, the gearing being connected to a plug connector that is displaceable in the housing almost perpendicularly to the direction of insertion via guide tracks.
The socket part is generally a part attached to a printed circuit board and has a plurality of plug contacts, for example, arranged in a plurality of rows.
Such connector arrangements are used, for example, in motor vehicles, when commercially available plug and socket connectors provide no possibility of contact. For reasons of space, the entire plug and socket connector should be only slightly larger than the actual socket part, with the result that the plug part that will be connected to the socket part cannot be easily gripped for disconnecting the plug and socket connection. Furthermore, the fact that a considerable force is used in order to disconnect the plug and socket connection due to the plurality of contact elements made for a plug and socket connection represents a problem.
In addition, there is the danger, when configuring plug and socket connectors which may only take up a very small place but have a plurality of contact elements, that contact elements may become damaged when connecting or disconnecting is performed inaccurately.
European Patent No. 273 999 describes an electrical plug and socket connector having a socket part and a plug part, the plug part including an actuating lever which is pivotably mounted in the connector part via a stationary rotation shaft. On its end opposite the actuating elements, the actuating lever has teeth that engage with a rack. This rack is firmly connected to a plug connector displaceably mounted in the plug part. In order to establish the connection, the plug part is placed on the socket part and the actuating lever is pivoted. The plug connector is displaced perpendicularly to the direction of insertion by the pivoting motion of the actuating lever, the cam projections arranged on the socket part engaging with the guide grooves arranged in the plug part, so that the plug part together with the plug connector is drawn in the direction of the socket part, so that electrical contact and thus the electrical plug and socket connection is established.
One important disadvantage of the above-described plug and socket connector is that, as the actuating lever is actuated to establish the electrical connection between the socket part and the plug part, the actuating force increases, first because a plurality of electrical contacts is established via the plug contacts, and second because other counterforces, for example, caused by sealing lips, are to be overcome at the same time. This results in operation that is not very convenient, because such plug and socket connectors are operated in small places.
An object of the present intention is to eliminate the disadvantages of the related art.
In principle, this object is achieved by striving to keep the actuating force applied to the actuating lever constant as far as possible during the entire pivoting movement, i.e., from the open position to the closed position.
This object is achieved by the fact that the teeth of the actuating lever are arranged on an elliptical path with respect to the pivot point of the actuating lever, the gearing being arranged obliquely to the actual direction of displacement of the plug connector.
One important advantage of the present invention is that the actuating force required for connecting the plug part to the socket part is approximately constant during the entire pivoting motion of the actuating lever because, due to the arrangement of the teeth on the actuating lever, the reduction ratio between the teeth on the actuating lever and the gearing changes during the pivoting motion. This change causes the force necessary to achieve coupling of the plug part with the socket part to have the same absolute value, in particular, immediately prior to the end of the closing motion as at the beginning of the closing motion, the path of the lever becoming smaller toward the end of the closing motion due to the changing reduction ratio.
The plug connector displaceably mounted in the housing is guided by cam projections arranged on the lateral parts of the socket part, which slide in the guide grooves during the motion of the plug part.
These guide grooves are preferably designed so that, in order to correctly place the plug part onto the socket part, the cam projections penetrate the openings in the guide grooves, these openings pointing to the opening of the plug part.
The actuating lever pivotably mounted in the plug part is preferably designed so that its U-shaped legs enclose the plug part on both sides, whereby a very stable actuating lever design is achieved, which remains operable even in difficult to access areas.